


Sugar Crush

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [22]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disaster Idiots, Donuts, F/M, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friends to Lovers, Gym Trainers AU, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Single Dad Din Djarin, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: "You wake uphalf an hourearlier, just to go there” exclaims Cara. “Just to... walk in there and buy these incidentally delicious donuts.Every. Damn. Day."She punctuates each of the last three words with a sharp jab of the donut in his direction.Din collects a clean towel from the locker, then slams it closed and sits next to Cara on the bench. He looks up at her, scrutinising her closely, and a corner of his mouth curls while he raises a hand to brush a few crumbs off Cara's chin."I'm aware,” he mutters, slowly retracting his hand after letting it linger one second too long.It feels like torture to Cara, whose heart is doing funny things in a very funny order – swelling, skyrocketing, breaking, missing beats. Din is sitting so close to her, being so tender and adorable, and all she can do is think he'd rather be with someone else.Cara snaps off a huge chunk of the donut with her teeth and loathes how its perfectly delectable taste makes her want to moan in pleasure. She has to remind herself she has these donuts only because Din needs an excuse to see another woman, and it's painful enough to kill the moan before it rises."You don't evenlikedonuts."
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 29
Kudos: 146





	Sugar Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Little pointless oneshot about Modern AU Idiots being our usual idiotic dorks.

Cara can't repress a groan when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees the door to the changing room swing open.

She smells the infuriatingly mouth-watering fragrance of the donuts before Din even steps into the room carrying the by now familiar pink and white bag from _Omera's Sweet Dreams – Bakery & Café._

The mere sight of the name makes her skin crawl. She curses the day she pulled Din into that damn bakery; he followed her reluctantly, that Sunday morning, indulging her curiosity despite his utter lack of a sweet tooth, and while Cara was happy to discover the bakery's donuts are _to die for,_ she didn't really appreciate the longing looks the pretty owner gave Din the whole time they sat in her café. When, the day after, Din showed up at the gym sporting a bag of freshly baked donuts, Cara glared at him, but that was lost on Din, who just threw her the whole bag and ducked into his locker whistling a happy tune which sounded suspiciously like _Love Is In The Air._

Ever since then for the past six weeks, it has become a daily routine: every morning Din arrives at work with exactly two donuts from Omera's bakery, wearing a big, radiant smile, and he never eats a single one of them. He's lucky Cara is addicted to those ridiculously scrumptious things; at least his money isn't completely wasted just to have an excuse to see pretty Omera every darn day.

"You're pathetic,” snaps Cara when Din tosses her the bag, which she catches as promptly as she does every morning, sitting in this exact same spot on the bench in the middle of the room. It's become their thing, though it doesn't mean what Cara would like it to mean.

"Thanks,” says Din with one of his beautiful, sweet smiles. “May I know why?"

She would probably hate him, if she wasn't so hopelessly in love with him. She has been since the day he walked in to be The Covert Fitness Centre's new Judo trainer, one year ago. Cara, who teaches Muay Thai at the centre, immediately started spending a lot of time with him, especially during their joint Self Defence classes four times a week, and what begun as an innocent crush rapidly grew into something much more serious in a matter of weeks, much to her frustration, because she and Din are very good friends – best friends, even – and she's pretty sure he's never looked at her as anything more than that.

At least so far she has been able to cling to the unwavering certainty Din wasn't looking for romance, busy as he is being a working single father; now she isn't so sure any more. She's been the only woman in his life since she's known him and for the whole time she's always wondered why such an incredible man never dates anyone despite a lot of people in the centre being _very_ romantically interested in him. She guesses he was waiting for the right person.

"This," she retorts, fishing a donut out of the bag. Din takes off his hoodie and looks at the donut with a small smile that makes Cara feel all tingly _and_ mad.

"Now I'm pathetic for getting you donuts?"

Cara snorts. So now it's all about _her?_ How hypocritical. This man has such a nerve.

Cara takes a large bite of the donut while Din changes into his training outfit; she chews stubbornly, hating herself a little for how much she loves the damn thing.

"She always leaves her number on the bag,” she notices, turning the paper bag around to observe the mobile phone number scribbled on one side. She arches her brows at Din. “You should call her."

"Every bakery has their number on their bags," Din remarks mater-of-factly.

The fact that he's playing dumb irks Cara even more. She feels an odd, masochistic curiosity toward this infatuation Din has because since the day they met Cara has never seen him look at a girl _once,_ and the gym is lousy with attractive, interesting girls. She was almost starting to wonder if he preferred guys, but then the donut thing started and, besides costing Cara a couple extra miles in her morning run, it made her come to the conclusion that the strong, fit girls at the gym simply must not be Din's type. His type is probably pretty and delicate women batting their long lashes at him from behind a counter.

"Dude,” she says, turning the scribbled side of the bag in his direction, “this is a hand-written personal number."

Din blinks at the string of figures as if he's noticing it for the first time – which is funny, because not only sweet Omera has been scribbling her number on Din's bags for _weeks,_ she's also been using a bold, black marker that makes a rather stark contrast against the light pastels of her dainty bags.

However, Din is either _really_ naïve or he's remarkably good at making himself look disarmingly clueless.

"Perhaps their ground line isn't working,” he guesses as he bends to tie his shoes. He shoots her an angelic grin that makes Cara groan in frustration. This would be so much easier if he wasn't so damn cute.

"How long are you gonna be in denial?"

"About what?"

Cara stuffs half of the donut into her mouth and grumbles as she chews, "Your stupid crush."

It takes Din a moment of make out what she just said. When he does, his grin gets a little awkward and a light blush appears beneath the stubble on his cheeks.

"Oh. _That."_

Cara's stomach twists. So, this is a confirmation. She didn't think it would hurt so much.

"Get yourself some dignity,” she whines. Even worse than hearing him straight up admit he has a crush on the bakery lady is seeing him all shy and smiley about it.

“It's been months,” she says with a painful knot in her throat, “either ask her out or stop wasting your time and money."

_And stop letting me rot in pointless hope._

"What are you talking about?"

Cara scoffs, dives her hand into the bag and fishes out the second donut. She normally saves this one for the afternoon, while she and Din walk home sipping coffee, but today she feels she deserves it right now.

"It takes you a thirty-minute detour to get to that specific bakery,” she points out, licking some sugar off her fingers. Din stares, a bit of the sheepish smile still lingering on his lips. His eyes are unfairly soft.

"So?"

"You wake up _half an hour_ earlier, just to go there” exclaims Cara. “Just to... walk in there and buy these incidentally delicious donuts. _Every. Damn. Day."_

She punctuates each of the last three words with a sharp jab of the donut in his direction.

Din collects a clean towel from the locker, then slams it closed and sits next to Cara on the bench. He looks up at her, scrutinising her closely, and a corner of his mouth curls while he raises a hand to brush a few crumbs off Cara's chin.

"I'm aware,” he mutters, slowly retracting his hand after letting it linger one second too long.

It feels like torture to Cara, whose heart is doing funny things in a very funny order – swelling, skyrocketing, breaking, missing beats. Din is sitting so close to her, being so tender and adorable, and all she can do is think he'd rather be with someone else.

Cara snaps off a huge chunk of the donut with her teeth and loathes how its perfectly delectable taste makes her want to moan in pleasure. She has to remind herself she has these donuts only because Din needs an excuse to see another woman, and it's painful enough to kill the moan before it rises.

"You don't even _like_ donuts,” she mumbles angrily under her breath.

Din observes her, waits for her to chew and swallow, chew and swallow. Half of the second donut is already gone.

Cara can feel his eyes on herself the whole time and can't help wondering is she's being too obvious in her reaction, if he can see the burning jealousy through her irritation.

Din scoots a little closer until his thigh and hers touch. Cara feels him smile at her through the curtain of dark hair veiling the side of her face, so she looks up, meaning to bark out some snarky comment that will hopefully erase the pity from his look, but what she finds in his eyes is not pity. Not even close.

"I don't,” he confirms. He tucks the hair behind her ear so that he can see her and she can see him. His smile grows achingly softer as he adds, “But you do."

Cara has no idea what that's supposed to mean.

"What does this have to do with you crushing on the bakery lady?" she inquires, even though her heart has stopped doing all the funny things it was doing before. In fact, it feels like it has stopped entirely.

"Who said I have a crush on the bakery lady?" says Din with a light frown that seems too genuine to be a joke.

"You?" she says, eyebrows arched sceptically.

"No, I didn't."

"You admitted it just one moment ago."

"I admitted having a crush,” he clarifies calmly, “I never said it was her."

Cara really wants to retort something rude and impatient – something she knows she will regret – but all she can utter through her confusion is, "Then why the fuck do you drive all the way to her _stupid_ bakery every _stupid_ day to buy these _stupidly_ awesome donuts you don't even like?"

Din _laughs._

He laughs, sitting obscenely close to her, the scent of liquorice in his breath filling Cara's lungs until she can taste it on her own tongue. He glances down at the piece of donut in her hand, then up at her again. One of his eyebrows rises.

“What do you think?”

Cara's mouth falls open but no sound comes out. Her brain is failing to compute anything more complex than erratic thoughts too random and intricate to be turned into proper words.

After she tries and fails a couple of times to say something, Din playfully nudges her with a touch of his shoulder, suddenly looking timid and perhaps even slightly nervous. The way he looks at Cara, so hopeful and insecure at the same time, leaves her with her head spinning too fast for her to grasp any of the emotions storming through her all at once.

He doesn't like donuts but _she_ does.

Cara likes donuts.

She can't breathe.

Has this really always been about _her?_

When her eyes and his meet, she fears her heart might explode in her chest, and all she can utter is a weak, choked, “Oh?”

Din hangs his head and nods, laughing, shoulders suddenly relaxed, then, as his laughter dies out, he finally turns back to her, and there is no mistaking the loving look on his face.

“ _Oh,”_ he echoes in confirmation with a soft, mischievous chuckle.

Cara's sight blurs for a second. She blinks, feeling a stupidly happy smile pull at her lips. This makes much more sense than Din crushing on Omera and still not asking her out after so many blatant signals, but still Cara is finding it hard to believe that Din is actually telling her what she thinks he is.

She gazes at the piece of donut in her hand and a little incredulous giggle escapes her lips. This was for her and no one else's, all along.

“Have you really...” she trails off, interrupted by small, breathless laugh, “... all this time?”

Din joins his hands between his knees and shrugs with a goofy grin.

“Since day one,” he confesses, making Cara groan for how absurd and comical the whole situation is.

_Since day one._

What a couple of fools.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

Din's answer is not what she expected.

“You're so out of my league I'm still not sure this is actually happening.”

He says that with a touch of guilt, as if he could sense Cara screaming _'Bullshit!'_ inside herself. It flatters her that he thinks he could not be enough for her; it's pure nonsense, of course, but it makes her realise they've both been pining like lovelorn teens thinking the other was too much for them.

“You're such an idiot,” she whispers, wrapping her arm around Din's as she leans her head against his shoulder.

They're both idiots.

This is something they've done countless time before, and yet it feels entirely new – the warmth of Din's skin, the scent of his shower gel mixed with the one of his freshly washed clothes, the sting of his beard against her temple...

Cara doesn't know how long they sit there. The minutes tick by, their fingers somehow find their way between each other. Why did it take so long – why was this so hard if it feels so easy?

"So,” begins Din after as long, blissful while as his thumb strokes the back of Cara's hand, “you busy tonight? Chico keeps asking about you."

Cara melts into a touched smile. Bringing the kid into this is an unfair move: she has a soft spot for little Francisco Djarin's big brown eyes. They are so much like his father's eyes that it's very hard to believe he is adopted.

She's never been very interested in children until she met Din's adorable four-year-old son, with his obsession for dinosaurs and cooking.

She turns to rest her chin upon his shoulder with a grin so wide her jaw hurts.

"I guess I can't disappoint the kid, uh?"

"He would very much love to have you over for dinner,” says Din in a low whisper.

"Uh-huh,” nods Cara knowingly. “And maybe breakfast, as well?"

Din blushes. His eyes keep going down to Cara's mouth; he bites his lip when he realises she noticed but doesn't look away.

"We could go grab donuts and lattes together at the bakery,” he says, “the three of us."

It's funny how Cara always imagined her first date with Din involving Chico, too: she fantasised about going to the lunapark with them, getting ice cream and cotton candy, walking hand in hand with Din as they followed the kid in his enthusiastic exploration.

Now the fantasy requires an adjustment: Chico rushing into the bakery, sticking his nose against the glass to take in all the pastries and the cakes, and Cara and Din in tow, still holding hands, and very smug about that.

Cara finds herself smirking at the suddenly very inviting perspective of returning to Omera's café.

"Do I get to hold your hand in front of the thirsty owner?" she asks, just to make sure.

Din laughs and presses a kiss to her forehead that makes her heart stop for a moment.

"You can hold all of me."

A flare of warmth spreads through Cara's chest. She sends Din a coy half a smile and mutters, "What if I can't let go?"

Din's laugh gets lost through Cara's hair. He squeezes her hand, caresses her with his breath. She can feel the stretch of a smile against her cheek.

"I think I could live with that."

**Author's Note:**

> This is as deep as a puddle, but I was in the mood for some good old pining and couldn't get this idea to leave me alone, which resulted into this super cheesy oneshot. I'm not even sorry.
> 
> Baby Yoda's human counterpart's name is Chico, short for Francisco, because I thought it'd be cute to literally call him _kid._
> 
> Hope this wasn't too quick and shallow. Comments are donuts to my heart. ;) <3


End file.
